Membership Payments

PEGblog Contributor Guidelines

Contributor guidelines

  • You must be the writer – we do not allow ghost written content.
  • Your blog post must relate to the editing, proofreading and revising of the written language or relate to language in general (reviews of books, courses, webinars, etc.).
  • It should be original and written specifically for our audience.
  • It must provide interesting up-to-date information, actionable advice and/or add value to our audience.
  • It must be well written, logical and easy to read.
  • Write in your own voice, but ensure the content reflects PEG’s values:
    • simple and to the point
    • motivational and persuasive
    • show your expertise without being overly authoritative
  • Your blog post must be edited, proofread and ready to publish. Include your editor/proofreader bio.
  • Use links to point readers to other PEGblog posts, the PEG website and other sources of additional information relevant to your content.
  • External links must not be self-promotional or include affiliate links. Self-promotional links may appear in your author bio.
  • Data, quotations, images and third-party content must be properly attributed. Any images in breach of copyright will not be accepted.
  • PEG reserves the right to edit and adapt guest blog posts as we see fit.

By submitting your blog post to us, you agree to the following:

  • You are the writer of the content. It is not written by a ghost writer or published under someone else’s name.
  • You give us permission to
    • make changes to your blog post to bring it in line with our publishing style and to optimise it for SEO. We may ask you to make the changes, if necessary. We will send you a copy of the final blog post for your approval before it is published.
    • repurpose your blog post whenever necessary. We may convert your post into other content types to promote it. This will increase visibility for you and your post.
    • update the blog post when required to ensure that the content is as up to date as possible. We may ask you to update it or update it ourselves.
    • share your blog post or links to your post on PEG’s social media platforms. We encourage all our contributors and readers to share PEGblog posts on their own social media networks and personal websites.

Guidelines for an author bio

(See How to Write a Bio Like a Superhero (Don’t Do These 6 Things) by Mel Wicks

Your author bio should meet these criteria:

  • It may be up to 50 words long.
  • Keep it clear and precise.
  • Write it in the third person (he, she, they).
  • Focus on what you do and how you help the audience.
  • Only share details about yourself that relate to the audience’s problem.
  • Include a link to your website or your email address.
  • Include a high-resolution headshot.

Length of blog posts:

Taken from How Long Should Your Blog Post Be? A Writer’s Guide by Joe Bunting

Used with permission.

  • 75–300 words

Super-short posts are best for generating discussion. They rarely get many shares on social media, and they’re horrible for SEO, but if you want a lot of comments, write short posts!

  • 300–600 words

The standard blogging length, recommended by many ‘expert’ bloggers. Good middle-ground for social shares and comments. Too short to gain much authority or search engine-love.

  • 750 words

This is the standard length for professional journalism, especially newspapers. I find that it’s pretty good for getting links from other bloggers and shares on social media.

  • 1 000–1 500 words

You’ll get fewer comments at this length but a lot more shares on social media, especially if you’ve followed the advice above and written a post that actually solves someone’s problem. That being said, I’ve written posts this long and gotten 100+ comments, so it really depends on the topic and your audience.

  • 2 450 words

The highest ranking articles on Google are most often 2,450 words. If you want to rank well on search engines (and thus get thousands of new readers per month), this is the best length to write. However, make sure you write about a topic that people are actually searching for. It would be a shame two write a book-length blog post on a topic no one ever searches for!

Our blogging process

  1. Writing: You will write a blog post and add appropriate images, if possible, and then send it to anna@workingwithwords.co.za with a short author bio.
  2. Editing: The PEGblog subcommittee will arrange for your blog post to be edited, including applying PEG’s house style. We may ask you to clarify, review or amend parts of your post. We will add appropriate images if you haven’t supplied these, along with keywords, a short summary and other metadata to make the post findable in web searches (SEO).
  3. Translation: We will arrange for the blog post to be translated and copyedited or proofread into one of the other South African official languages, if possible.
  4. Approval: We will return the final copy of the blog post to you for your approval.
  5. Preparation: We will format the text for our platform, using our standard structure and layout.
  6. Publication: We will let you know when your article is live and send you the link.
  7. Promotion: We’ll publicise your article on the PEG chat e-group, LinkedIn and Facebook. You are welcome to promote your article through your own social media too.